


Day 15- Stitches

by Broken_Clover



Series: Goretober 2018 [15]
Category: BlazBlue
Genre: Blood and Injury, Concussions, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Gen, Medical Procedures, Mentor/Protégé, Stitches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 12:12:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16492382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Broken_Clover/pseuds/Broken_Clover
Summary: Litchi shouldn't have let Linhua come along.





	Day 15- Stitches

Litchi Faye-Ling had seen worse days. She could say with absolute certainty that this wasn’t the worst day she’d ever lived through. That didn’t make it _good_ , per say. Dragging her teenage assistant and her own self back to the clinic on foot while they were both bleeding wasn’t ‘good,’ not by any stretch of the imagination.

“Still holding up alright, Linhua?” She managed to ask, voice quiet from the ribs that she was pretty sure had at least been bruised.

“Hnnh…m’okay, boss…” The girl was slumped against her mentor, relying heavily on the taller woman to support her weight. One leg dragged behind as Litchi helped her walk, and dripped blood from several deep gashes in her thigh.

“Just keep yourself awake for me, okay?” Neither of them were in very good shape. Litchi could feel her chest and abdomen ache every time she breathed, and her left arm and side has been slashed up with deep gouges. Linhua was even worse. Along with the leg that Litchi was sure wasn’t going to be walked on for a while, both of her knees were scraped, and a steady stream of blood was running down her temple from where she’d been thrown against the rock.

Why had she let Linhua come along? Of course she’d tried to dissuade the girl from following her, but Linhua had been persistent. If only she hadn’t decided to cave so easily…Her search for Arakune shouldn’t have gotten anyone else involved. She knew the sorts of things that creature was capable of, and she’d still let Linhua come with her. Anything that happened to Linhua was going to be on her shoulders alone.

Litchi just hoped that a few cuts and a concussion was all it was going to be.

The familiar shape of the clinic appeared, framed by the setting sun. Litchi wasted no time in dragging the both of them inside. Linhua was still conscious, but glassy-eyed and murmuring incoherently.

“Wait here, Linhua. Stay awake. I’ll be back in just a moment.” She placed her assistant down on the bed, immediately heading off in search of supplies. Two minutes and thirteen seconds later, she was back with a bag of everything she though she’d need.

“Mhnn…boss?”

“Shh. You’re going to be alright, Linhua.” Litchi reached out to stroke the girl’s hair, sizing up the various wounds on her body.

First order of business, she pulled out an antiseptic salve and began dabbing it around the wounds to clean them off. Considering Arakune’s sewer-dwelling habits, she could only imagine the sorts of bacteria that dripped off of him- and by extension, the clawed appendages that he had used to cut them with.

Linhua was too disoriented to do anything besides moan and wiggle in pain from the stinging sensation. Litchi didn’t stop, holding her assistant down to keep her from moving too much. When the wounds were disinfected, she washed off most of the rest of the blood, or as much as she could before more came to replace it.

“Stay awake. You’re going to be okay.”

A surgical needle was threaded and fed into the skin of the deepest gash. As carefully as she could manage, she pulled the ragged edges together and sealed them with zigzagging black lines.

“You’re doing wonderfully, just hold on a little more…”

Oddly enough, the rhythm of stitching helped Litchi calm her thoughts and stay focused. Several of the wounds ended up being superficial, with a scant few being so deep as to require stitches. Litchi let out a heavy sigh of relief as she bandaged up the stitches and hid the wounds behind layers of white.

“I’m so proud of you, Linhua.” She reached down to pet her assistant’s hair again, smiling faintly. “But don’t ever scare me like that again.”

“S’rry…ma’am.”

“Don’t apologize. Just take it easy for a bit. Hopefully nothing gets infected. I’m going to have to keep a close eye on the both of us for the next couple of days.”

By the end, she was mostly speaking to herself. Litchi got to work scrubbing her own wounds, ignoring the faint ache of her ribcage and the sheer amount of dried blood caked on her arms in order to thoroughly clean everything out. If it got worse later on, she could deal with it. As long as Linhua was okay, Litchi wasn’t worried about much.

She was long used to sewing up her own wounds from several Arakune-hunts, along with general accidents that she’d encountered. Litchi hardly thought twice about jabbing herself and pulling the thread, keeping a close watch on Linhua’s sleeping form all the while.

When her wounds were finally stitched and wrapped, she got up and dragged over a comfier chair to sit in. It was going to be a long night of keeping vigil.


End file.
